Ita
Ita is the national chess of Pseudo. It is the variant most commonly played in most of Pseudo, although other places have their own local variants (such as Uvoi at or near Feleqilus with its real-value movement). Ita, however, earns the name "international" in the chess field in Pseudo, being played in more cultures than any other. History and Variants Ita originates from several simpler games that get amalgamated and then Calvinballed into a state that it is today. Easily-found contributors include: ; Ista : This is the game that gave Ita its name, as well as the Flag. Unlike the other inspirations below, Ista is a physical sport, and is still played to this very day. ; Oimba : This game supplies a lot of ideas into the game, such as playing the game on points rather than the more conventional squares, two royal pieces, a 10 × 10 board, and winning by capturing royal pieces. It looks a lot like Chess, although it is very sparse and the pieces are of multiple sizes. It provides a lot of the flavor that shows up in Ita. ; Laima : This is a relative of Ita that ended up influencing it. Laima contributed mainly the board design, with the crosshatches down the center of the board that mark the domain of the Flags. ; Too many war simulator games to count : Some of them are physical fighty games. Others are more mental exercise. In any case, they contribute the names to them. The improvisation of early Ita also owes itself to the improvisation of these war simulator games, some of which are popular to this day and still more are revived. Ita itself lent itself to a plethora of chess variants (Ita variants?) that spawned after it, including the aforementioned Uvoi. These variants can't really be called chess variants, because they often look very alien indeed. Uvoi, as mentioned, doesn't have squares, instead opting for a real-valued piece locations and capture by proximity rather than replacement. Real Ita, a port of Uvoi's real-valued-piece-locations into vanilla Ita, is a noteworthy and common variant. A particular variant of Ita stands up against the rest: Calvinita (obviously not a direct translation, but whatever), where it's not just rules that are defined, there are rough guidelines on how you can change them. More information on the Calvinita page. Objective and Scoring The object of this game is twofold: # Get one of your Flags to the other side of the board – t10 or œ10 if white and t1 or œ1 if black. # Capture all the Flags of your opponent. The end of the game can also result when: * A side is reduced to only one of its two flags – the Bare Flag rule * It is your turn and you have no legal move – stalemate * You run out of time (see timing below) * There are fewer than 6 pieces on the board and there have been no captures for the last 36 turns – the Boredom rule The score is calculated as thus: The last three is one of the inevitable consequences when the rules can be subject to modify on-the-fly. Piece Rundown Note! The letters do not appear in Latin alphabetical order! They are first letters of numbers in Egonyota Pasaru, which gives the de facto order. The order is u, g, s, f, t, œ, lz, a, y, o. However, the rank numbers remain the same. |Side 2 = }} Note that the array is made such that most pieces can move at the beginning of the game. Royal piece: Flag The Flags are the royal piece in this game. The winning and the losing of the game depends on this piece, as stated in the objective written above. The flag can move one square forward, without capturing. However, it has two special moves it can execute once per game per Flag. ;Hidden Alley:It can move one square down the diagonal squares, in any direction. ;Courage:It can capture exactly one enemy piece. These two can be used simultaneously, but these two special moves may not be transferred between Flags. Rook The Rook is almost exactly like in FIDE, except it is limited to six squares. Bishop The Bishop is almost exactly like in FIDE, except it is limited to seven squares. Cavalry The cavalry can move like a Knight or a Camel, but without the ability to jump over any piece, friendly or otherwise. A Cavalry attempting to go from u1 to f2 is presumed to go through g1 and s1, and these squares must be empty for the Cavalry to continue on to f2. Squire The Squire is a piece that can move like a non-leaping Knight (again, if it wishes to go from u1 to s2 the square g1 must be empty). It can also move like a Queen, but limited to two squares. Leaper The Leaper is like the Chinese cannon, but does not need to move if it captures (i.e. it captures by stationary feeding – igui.) Pawn The Pawn can move like a Wazir (one square orthogonally, north and south) and can also move diagonally backwards. "Backwards" is towards the Pawn's home row. Pawns do not promote and do not have any special ability. Timing There are five modes for timing in Ita, called Peaceful, Easy, Medium, Hard and Hardcore. In all these modes save Peaceful, White has less time than black, to counteract the advantage that having the first move gives. In most modes, time can regenerate itself. See Also * Play the game here. Category: 1.01.16 Culture of Pseudo